IX
It was shortly after Yagna’s engagement had taken place; All Souls’ Day had dawned.
Ever since morning, the church-bells of Lipka had tolled incessantly, slowly; their doleful and sorrowful notes, floating over the desolate fields, called the people together with deep-sounding voices of sadness on this day, which rose pallid and swaddled in fog, as far as the far-off horizon—where the earth and the sky met, no one knew where, in a vague unfathomed abyss of vacuity.
Now, as soon as the sun arose in the east, which still glowed red as copper molten and cooling, hosts of crows and daws had been coming thence, winging their flight from beyond the lurid clouds.
They flew very high; so high that neither the eye could well make them out, nor the ear catch distinctly the wild and melancholy harshness of their croaking, which sounded like weeping in the autumn night.
And from the belfry, the tolling sounded continually.
The deep notes of that doleful hymn rolled heavily through the thick nebulous air—rolled all over the countryside, and men and fields and villages seemed as one vast heart, throbbing to the dismal dirge.
And still the flocks of birds increased, even to the dismay and stupefaction of the people; for now they flew lower, ever in vaster multitudes, sprinkling the sky as with scattered specks of soot; and the dull flapping and croaking was now louder, more boisterous, more turbulent—like a storm that is drawing nigh. They swept in circles over the village: and as a heap of dead leaves the blast plays with, so they wheeled over the ploughed lands, floated down to the woods, hung above the skeleton poplar-trees, took possession of the lindens round about the church, and perched upon the trees in the burial-ground.
“A severe winter it will be,” people said.
“Snow is going to fall—they are flying towards the woods.”
They now approached the huts in still greater numbers; never before had so many been seen together. People looked at them, sighing, in fear of an evil omen, and some made on their brows the sign of the Cross, as a protection from the evil to come, and put on their garments to set out for church. And continually the tolling sounded with a dull roar; from the neighbouring villages the people were already coming to pray.
An all-pervading sense of desolation filled every soul; in every heart, there reigned a strange distressful silence: the stillness of mournful reminiscences, the recollections of those who had gone before, gone to lie beneath the drooping birch-trees, and the darkly looming crosses, that stood slantwise in the churchyard.
“O my Jesus! O my beloved Jesus!” they would murmur, and then raise up their ashen-grey faces, and fear no longer, plunging into the mystery of futurity: and they calmly went forward to present their offerings and to say their prayers for the dead.
The whole village was as though lost in a sea of grave and heart-stricken quietude: only the whining singsong of the dziads at the church-door now and then broke the stillness.
At Boryna’s, the silence was especially deep: though indeed it was of that hell which reigned amongst them, and was on the point of bursting forth.
His children knew all by that time.
The day before being Sunday, the first banns had been published from the pulpit. On Saturday, Boryna had gone with Yagna to town, where he had settled six acres of land upon her in the presence of a notary. He came back late, and with his face scratched. Being the worse for liquor, he had behaved disrespectfully to Yagna; but had only got acquainted with the strength of her arm and the sharpness of her nails.
On his return, he said no word to anyone, but went to bed as he was—in his boots and sheepskin coat; and when Yuzka next morning complained that he had soiled his featherbed with mud:
“Let me alone, Yuzka, let me alone!” he answered her merrily. “Such a thing may happen sometimes, even to one who has not been drinking.”
In the morning he had gone over to Yagna, and stayed all day: at home, dinner and supper waited for him in vain.
This day, too, he rose late, considerably after dawn, put on his best capote, ordered Vitek to smear his Sunday boots with grease and line them with fresh-cut straw, was shaved by Kuba, girt himself, and, taking his hat, slipped out through the fence, and was seen there no more that day.
Yuzka cried all the time. Antek was in the grip of tortures, even sharper and more agonizing, and could neither eat, nor sleep, nor busy himself in any way. He felt dazed as yet, and could not wholly realize what had come to pass. His face had grown sombre, but his eyes seemed larger, and flaming glassily—full of hardened tears, as it were. He had to clench his teeth lest he should cry out and curse aloud, and was continually walking about the cabin, or around it, or about the enclosure, or in the road; and on coming back, he would throw himself on a bench in the porch, and sit there motionless for hours, racked by sufferings that were ever growing more intolerable.
The house was dreary, and within it there continually resounded the sound of weeping, as sobs and sighs resound in a house wherein someone lies dead. The doors of the byre and the sties stood wide open, the cattle and swine wandered about at liberty in the orchard, some even looking in at the windows. No one attempted to interfere with them but old Lapa, who barked and tried to drive them in again, but unsuccessfully.
Sitting on his truckle-bed in the stable, Kuba was cleaning a gun, while Vitek, gazing at him in wondering awe, took care to keep a lookout on the yard, for fear someone might drop in.
“Oh, what a noise it made! Lord! I thought it was the Squire or the keeper shooting.”
“Ah, yes. I had not shot for ever so long, and the charge I put in was too big: it roared like a cannon.”
“Did you go in the evening at once?”
“Aye, to the manor lands close to the wood. The roebucks are fond of coming that way to crop the sprouting blades in the sown fields. It was very dark, and I had long to wait. Just at dawn, a buck came by. I was so well hidden that he was only five paces away from me. But I did not shoot. He was as big as an ox, and I knew I could not carry him off. So I spared him; and after the space of a few Paters, some does appeared. I chose the finest, and took aim. What a report there was! I had put in a heavy charge: it kicked so, my shoulder is one bruise still. And the doe fell; but she still kicked, and made such a fearful noise that I was afraid the keeper might hear, and I had to cut her throat.”
Vitek was full of enthusiasm.
“And—did you leave her in the wood?”
“Where I left her, I left her: it’s no business of yours. And if you say a single word about this to anyone … you’ll see what I shall do to you!”
“I won’t, if you forbid me; but may I not tell Yuzka?”
“The whole village would know directly. No.—But, here is a five-kopek piece, for you to buy something with.”
“Without that, I’d hold my tongue.—But, O dear, dear Kuba! take me with you some day!”
“Breakfast!” Yuzka was in front of the cabin, calling to them.
“Be easy, Vitek, I shall take you.”
“And you’ll let me shoot—once, only once?” he entreated.
“Silly one! think you they give gunpowder for nothing?”
“But I have money, Kuba, I have. Master gave me two zloty for the last fair, and I was keeping them for the Memorial offering. But. …”
“Very well; I shall teach you how to shoot,” he whispered, patting the boy’s head, and touched by his appeal.
Almost as soon as they had finished breakfast, they went together to church. Kuba limped along as fast as he could; but Vitek lagged a little behind: he was ashamed to have to go barefoot, for he had no boots.
“Is it right to go into the vestry without boots?” he queried in a low voice.
“You are foolish. Does our Lord consider a man’s boots, not his prayers?”
“True; but are not boots more respectful?” he whispered sadly.
“Oh, you will get boots one of these days.”
“That I shall! Let me but grow up to be a farmhand, I shall directly go off to Warsaw and get a place in some stable. In the town, they all wear boots, don’t they, Kuba?”
“They do.—Can you remember anything about Warsaw, Vitek?”
“Of course. I was five when Kozlova brought me here; so I recollect perfectly. … Yes, we went on foot to the station, and there I saw no end of glowing lights … and houses all one close to another, and as big as churches.”
“Nonsense!” cried Kuba, disdainfully.
“But I remember quite well. I could not see the roofs, they were so high. Windows, too, to the very ground. Whole walls of windows! And everywhere bells were ringing continually.”
“No wonder; there are so many churches there.”
“Else whence could the ringing have come?”
And now they were silent, having entered the churchyard and begun to push their way through the dense throngs that filled all the space round the church, not being able to get in.
There the dziads had formed a lane from the church to the road, crying out, screaming, uttering prayers, or asking alms, each in his own way; some were playing on fiddles, and droning out hymns in mournful voices; others on flageolets or concertinas; and all together causing such a racket as almost to make one deaf.
The vestry, too, was full of people: so full that they were sorely squeezed against the tables, where the organist and his son (the one who had been at school) were taking down the names given for the Memorial offerings.
Kuba got through the press, and rolled off a long list of names to the organist, who wrote them down, and received for each soul three kopeks, or as many eggs (in case one had no ready cash).
Vitek was not able to push forward so fast, for his bare feet were sorely trod upon, but he got on as well as he could, clutching the money in his hand. When, however, he found himself in front of the organist at the table, he felt suddenly overwhelmed and tongue-tied with confusion. What! only farmers and farmers’ wives round him—almost all those of the village … ? Even the miller’s wife was there, wearing a hat like the wife of the Squire!—And the blacksmith and the Voyt, with their dames—all giving the names of those whose souls they wished remembered; some as many as a score of them—all the family, and their fathers and forefathers—And he … what name could he give? His own father, his mother—what names had they? Could he tell? For whom, then, should his offering be made? … “O my Jesus, my little Jesus!” he cried in his soul; but his mouth remained wide open, and he stood there like a witling. His heart was wrung with an agony of grief, he could hardly draw his breath, and he felt so faint that he was like to drop down as one dead. But he could not stay there; the crowd shoved him aside into a corner, beneath the holy water stoup: and, in order not to fall, he crouched down with his head against the tin basin, while tears gushed forth and fell, like the beads of some rosary of desolation. It was in vain that he tried to keep them back; he was so shaken, so unnerved in every limb, that he had not even the strength to clench his teeth and stand up. So he crept into a corner out of sight, and wept abundant tears—the bitter tears of a fatherless, motherless boy.
“Mother, O Mother!” something within him was crying, and tearing his heart to pieces. … He could not think why each of the other lads had his father and his mother, while he alone was without either—bereft—and how bereft—of both!
“Jesus, my Jesus!” he sobbed, crying out like a poor bird strangling in a snare. … It was then that Kuba came upon him and said:
“Vitek, have you given in your Memorial offering?”
“Not yet,” he returned; and, suddenly drying his eyes, he forced his way back to the table. Yes: he would give names. Did it concern anyone that he had no parents he knew? If he had none, it was his own affair. If he was a foundling, a foundling let him be.—He therefore took heart, wiped his eyes, and boldly gave the names Josephine, Marianna, Anthony—the first that occurred to him.
He paid, took the change, and went with Kuba into the church to pray and hear the priest read the names of his dear departed!
A catafalque, bearing a coffin at its summit, had been raised in the centre of the church. Round it many tapers were burning, while the priest read aloud from the pulpit an interminable list of names. Now and then he stopped, and the whole congregation said the Paters, Aves, and Credos that should relieve the souls of the faithful departed.
Vitek knelt down by the side of Kuba; the latter took out a rosary, and counted thereon all the prayers which the priest had recommended. Vitek too recited a few prayers; but the monotonous sounds soon made him drowsy, and, worn out by the heat of the place and his recent fit of tears, he presently rested his head against Kuba and went to sleep.
In the afternoon, all the Boryna family were present at the Vespers which were sung once a year in the churchyard mortuary chapel. Antek and his family, the blacksmith and his, Yuzka accompanied by Yagustynka, and Vitek, and Kuba dragging himself in the rear, had come, determined to make the most they could of All Souls’ Day.
As a man shuts his weary eyelids, and plunges into dark unfathomable shadows, so evening was closing in; the wind sounded with a dreary voice, long drawn out, and wafted the odours of many a mouldering leaf, redolent with unpleasant effluvia.
The countryside was serene, with the strange and sombre calm of that anniversary of sadness. The crowds went about their way—as it were, in painful silence; their trampling boots echoed with dull dead sounds: the roadside trees waved their boughs restlessly, and swayed overhead with a sad sullen murmur.
In front of the lich-gate and about the graves along the wall, stood rows of barrels, and many a dziad was close by. It was by this road that the people came along to the burial-ground. The twilight had already covered the world, sprinkling it with its ashen greyness, although there twinkled athwart its folds many a rustic lamp (fed with butter for oil!), with yellow flickering flame. Each one, on entering the churchyard, took from his wallet either bread, or cheese, or a piece of bacon or of sausage; or a skein of thread, or else a handful of combed flax; sometimes even a string of dried mushrooms. These they deposited piously in one of the barrels that stood open there; they formed offerings for the priest, for the sacristan Ambrose, for the organist—and, lastly, for the dziads. Such as had no offerings in kind to give, put a few kopeks into the outstretched hands of the latter, whispering the names of the dead for whom they asked them to intercede.
About the lich-gate, then, there was a continuous cadence of names called out, and prayers, and chants, in broken and unequal rhythm. The people went on and soon disappeared, vanishing among the graves. Presently, like so many glowworms, tiny lights began to shine and tremble in the dusky thickets and the dry grass.
Breaking the stillness, which, as it were, exhaled from out of the earth, prayers were everywhere audible, in low quavering tones of awe. Now and again there would come from some grave a heartbroken sigh; sometimes a thrilling lament would rise from the winding paths around the crosses; and then a sudden short shriek of despair would burst forth, rending the air like a flash of lightning; or the faint weeping of children would be heard among the murky bushes, like the chirping of unfledged birds in their nests.
From time to time, there would creep over the churchyard a dull and dreary silence, when only the trees were audible, murmuring ominously, as the sound of human miseries and sorrows and clamorous agony floated up to Heaven.
They went about the graves noiselessly, and terror-struck they stared into the dim and unknown distance.
“All must die!” they muttered, in tones of torpid palsy-stricken resignation, and went on further, to sit by the graves of their fathers, and either recite orisons, or remain motionless, in a reverie that deadened both love of life and fear of death—aye, and even abhorrence of pain. They were like trees, bowing low in the blast; and, like them, their souls quivered slumberously: dismayed, yet benumbed.
“O my Jesus! O merciful Lord! O Mary!”—such were the ejaculations which burst forth from their tormented souls. They raised their faces—now expressionless with grief—and fixed their hollow eyes on the crosses, and on those trees in drowsy yet perpetual motion: and falling on their knees at the feet of the crucified Christ, they laid before Him their fear-stricken hearts, and shed tears of resignation and self-surrender.
Kuba went with Vitek in the same direction; but when it became quite dark, the former crawled further on—away to the old burial-ground. There the forgotten ones lay—those whose very memory had perished long ago, with their days, and the times they lived in, and all the past. There, only ill-omened birds uttered hoarse croakings, and the bushes rustled mournfully near some cross of rotting wood that still remained standing here and there. In this forgotten nook lay side by side whole families, hamlets, generations: no one came there to pray, to shed tears, to light lamps any more. The gale alone blew fiercely through the boughs, tore off the last of their leaves, and tossed them away into the night, to be lost therein. And voices howled that were not voices; and shadows moved—but were they only shadows?—striking at random against the trees, as though they had been blinded birds, and seeming to moan and beg for pity!
Kuba took from his bosom several pieces of bread that he had put by. Kneeling down, he broke them, and threw the morsels about among the tombs.
“Food for you there is, O Christian soul!” he whispered, very earnestly. “I forget you not at eventide.—Food for you, O sufferer that was mortal!—Food for you!”
“And will they take it?” Vitek asked in terror.
“Beyond doubt!—Our priest forbids it.—The others put the food into those barrels, and these poor creatures get nothing. But what? Shall the priest’s and the dziads’ swine have to eat, and Christian ghosts stray starving!”
“Ah! will they come hither?”
“Yea, all who suffer the cleansing fires—all. Jesus lets them back to earth for today, to visit their people.”
“To visit them!” Vitek repeated, shuddering.
“Fear not. On this day, nothing evil has any power to harm: the Memorial offerings have driven him away—him, the bad Angel! So have the lamps. And our Lord comes in person about the world, and He, the beloved Shepherd, goes counting how many souls are His yet, and choosing from amongst them.”
“Oh, does our Lord Jesus come to the earth today?” Vitek said faintly, looking around.
“Do you think to see Him? That only Saints can do—and persons greatly wronged.”
“See, see, lights are there; and there are people too,” Vitek cried out in alarm, and he pointed to a long row of graves close to the hedge.
“Ah, there lie those slain during our insurrection. Yes, my master lies there; aye, and my mother too.”
They forced their way through the underwood, and knelt down by the graves. These had fallen in, and were so level with the rest of the ground that they could hardly be traced. They were marked by no crosses, overshadowed by no trees. Only barren sand was there, and a few dry stalks of mullein: all was stillness, oblivion, death.
Ambrose, together with Yagustynka and old Klemba, were kneeling beside those perishing graves. A few lamps glimmered, fixed in the sand; the winds made them wave and tremble, and carried away the supplications into the blackness of the night.
“Aye; there lies my mother,” Kuba said, rather to himself than to the boy, who had crept close to him, chilled to the very marrow.
“Magdalena was her name. My father had land of his own: he served as coachman to the manor, but never drove out, save with the old Squire, and stallions to the coach! … After that, he died. … His uncle inherited the land, and I became swineherd to the manor. … Yes, Magdalena was my mother’s, and Peter, my father’s name: surname, Soha, and I bear it. … Then the Squire set to making me coachman, to drive with his stallions, as my father had done. … I was continually going to the chase, with Master and other gentlemen; and I learned to shoot pretty well myself; and the son of the Squire gave me a gun. …
“I remember perfectly. … When they all went out for the insurrection, they took me with them too. … I fought for a whole year: killed more than one Russian grey dog … more than two, even. … Then the Squire’s son was shot in the belly. His bowels gushed out. He was my master, and a good man; so I took him on my shoulders and carried him away. … Later, he got off somewhere to a warm country, but first gave me a letter to take to his father. Well, I went. I was weary of all, dog-tired … got shot in the leg on my way, and it would not heal; for I was always out of doors, sleeping under the stars. … Then came snow, and a terrible frost:—I remember well! … So I got there … at night … and looked about for the place.—Oh, what a thunderstroke!—No more manor—no more barns—no more hedges, even. All had been burned down to the ground. … And the old Squire … and his lady … and my mother too … and also the girl Yosefka, who was chambermaid there … all lay in the garden, slaughtered!—O Jesus! Jesus!—Aye, I remember.—O holy Mary!” These last words he uttered very low; great tears that he did not care to hide ran down his cheeks in floods, and he heaved deep sighs, as that night rose again before him.
The darkness grew more and more intense; the blast caught more and more fiercely at the trees; the long tresses of the birch-boughs thrashed the graves about them, and their trunks, white as sheeted ghosts, loomed dimly through the gloom. The folk were leaving the place, the lamps going out, the hymns of the dziads dying away. A solemn silence, disturbed only by weird rustlings and thrilling whispers, now reigned among the tombs. The graveyard seemed filled with shadowy forms, the bushes bore questionable shapes; there were melodies of lulled soft moans, oceans of eerie tremors, movements of shapeless things in the dark, bursts of dread hushed sobs, mysterious and horror-breathing alarms which made the heart sink. Throughout the village, the very dogs were howling with long despairing howls.
On this holiday alone, Lipka was hushed. The roads were deserted, the inn-doors closed. Through the tiny mist-blurred windowpanes of a few huts, lights were seen to shine, and holy hymns heard to quaver timidly forth, with loud supplications to God for the souls of the faithful departed.
Outside the cabins, the folk glided about in fear; in fear did they listen to the quiet sighs of the trees; in fear did they look towards the window, lest there should appear to them one of those who, on this day, wander by God’s decree and their own yearning—lest they should be heard lamenting where four roads meet—or be seen looking sorrowfully in through the window.
Outside certain huts, the husbandmen—following ancient customs—set the remains of the evening meal for the hungry ghosts to partake of and, crossing themselves, breathed some such invitation: “O Christian soul that still abidest in the place of cleansing, lo! here is refreshment for thee!”
And thus, in stillness and sadness, amidst memories and fears, did the evening of All Souls’ Day come to an end.
On Antek’s side of his father’s cabin sat Roch, the pilgrim to our Lord’s sepulchre, reading and telling many a pious and holy legend.
People were there not a few: for both Ambrose and Yagustynka and Klemba had come, Kuba and Vitek, Yuzka and Nastusia: the only one absent was old Boryna, who remained at Yagna’s till late in the night.
Save for the crickets that cried and the pine-knots that crackled on the hearth or in the fire, the cabin was still as death.
They all were sitting on benches round the fire; Antek alone sat looking out of the window. Roch now and then drew the red embers together with his staff, while he spoke thus, in a soft hushed voice:
“It is not terrible to die.—Oh, no!
“As birds in winter fly to a warmer land, so do our weary little souls long to fly to Jesus.
“Though the trees stand bare in winter, yet are they clothed in spring by the Lord with green leaves and scented blossoms: thus, O thou soul of man, dost thou go to Jesus to find with Him joy, and spring, and gladness, and vesture eternal!
“As the sun caresses our weary earth, fatigued with fruit-bearing, so doth our Lord caress each soul, and make it forget the past winter of anguish and death.
“Ah me! for in this world there is naught but trouble, and wailing, and woe!
“And evil increases and multiplies, as doth the thistle in the woodlands!
“All things are vain and to no purpose … like tinder-wood, and like the bubbles which the wind maketh on the water and driveth away.
“And there is no faith, nor hope, save in God alone!”